It was a dark, rainy drive down to the Nenana river. We resigned ourselves to a wet day in sticky drysuits on a cold river when an unexpected sun broke out to give us a hot, clear day. We put in at Grassy knoll, 11 miles south of McKinley village, and had a fun 33 mile ride through class II and III rapids to Glitter gulch.
On some deep, open stretches of river we tested our drysuits by jumping off the raft and practicing self-rescue. It's a lot harder than it seems! There is a strategy for clambering back onto a raft. If you grab onto the side rope and push yourself down into the water, the buoyancy of your life jacked will propel you up high enough to lock your arms. Then it's a matter of kicking hard enough to fall into the raft.We ended up getting more practice hauling each other out of the water.
